Looking for poisoning ideas

Stratics Veteran

Many think that poisoning has been to severely nerfed. It is cured almost as quickly as it is applied. Repeatedly. Yet the non-nox crowd says to leave it alone. So I am looking for ideas to propose to enhance it without stepping on anyones' toes.

Perhaps one of these- please add your own:
when you are poisoned, let's assume there to be a "recovery" period during which you are cured, but you are still "recovering" from the effects of being poisoned. Maybe anything from 3-20 seconds, depending upon skill level and strength of poison used. During this period of recovery, and senses and strength returning, maybe one of these......

a speed penalty, for both casting and swing.

a targeting penalty, as double vision clears, where hit chance is lowered, and chance of a spell mis-firing is increased.

Stratics Veteran

What am I doing in the Thieves forum? I don't know... but I'll add my 2 cents anyway.

Ok, right now poison is kind of balanced. It's easy to cure, which is for the best since it's also easy to apply.

If you want to change poison, you have to change it on both ends.

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It is easy to apply if you are a ninja. However, if you have trained the poisoning skill, you are talking about great time, expense, and 100 skill points! For all that investment, there should be more bang for the buck, in my opinion- as well as others.

Stratics Veteran

The effort it takes to train a skill isn't all that relevant. The invested skill points, of course, are relevant.

What I ment to say; it's too easy to apply poison over and over again to make it much more powerful. I wouldn't mind making it harder to cure or even some longer lasting effects after it's cured. But then inflicting the poison should be harder too.

I think it's really hard to strike a good balance with poisoning. Poisoning prevents most forms of healing, which means unless the player can cure himself he dies. So there has to be a relatively easy cure available to all players. 100 skill points should not mean a player has little or no chance to survive.
But you might be on to something with this additional effect idea. Something that gives the attacker an advantage. Not quite so deadly as taking away the defender's ability to heal but still an advantage. There should be additional useage cost also though.

For poisoning with a blade, using the poisoning skill, it is easy to apply, but I also have to hit you. Defense chance comes into play for the difficulty of poisoning a person with a blade.

Now, most folks poisoning with a blade are going to be inflicting deadly or lethal. It's not worth it to poison the lesser levels really.

These poisons aren't as easily cured by the Mage Spell - Cure. Most mages will have to run away and cast Arch Cure. The same is also true of Cleanse by Fire. It will sometimes cure on the first cast, (karma dependent), but usually will take a couple times.

In my opinion, the real problem lies with Pot curing, as it is now. I have never failed to cure deadly with just one Greater Cure Pot. There should be a timer on it... say 5 seconds or so. This is enough time to make the poison useful for a tick, but also gives a chance for the person to cure the poison. Cure Pots should have a 3 second timer on them

Most folks run around with a couple ways of healing or have extra HP regen. They might have to disengage, for a couple seconds to concentrate on the poison but would be right back in it. The 5 second timer would be let you start an aid, and cure with a pot. If you got poisoned again (within 5 seconds) the aid would take care of it and you would have to drink a heal pot. This way it is more of an inconvenience, but most folks wouldn't have to change their template to deal with it.

On the opposite side of things, the mana cost for that infectious strike is 15. However, most blade poisoners will use only 10 or possibly 5 mana points for that special move, which is incredibly low. Even if I deal with the penalty of special moves within 3 seconds. - The first one is 5, the second one is 10. (or the first is 10 and the 2nd 20). I think the start value for mana on infectious strike should be raised to 20 possibly 25.

This easy solution, makes the person inflicted have to deal with it, perhaps even disengage from the battle for a couple seconds. The poisoner would see some benefit from his skill but would have to be more judicious with his mana so they couldn't be chained.

A couple things I haven't discussed....

One is Spirit Speak. It should remain the same. It heals through poison. However, if the continue to let lethal tick, they will get interrupted at some point and have to deal with it.

The other is shurikens. Hit chance of the shuriken is based off the ninja skill. Ninja's can't apply lethal poison, just deadly. They have no mana cost associated with throwing a shuriken. Personally, I consider this a bit of a free ride for Ninja's. One of 2 things need to happen here. They need to pay the same mana penalty as the folks using infectious strike or the level of poison they can inflict should be capped at greater poison. (Greater poison stands a fair chance of being cured by a just a Cure Pot.)

Make curing poison as difficult as it originally was, then instead make it equally difficult to actually inflict the poison. I can inflict poison every single time I hit someone. This is where the problem lies, not in the curing.

Curing poison shouldn't have been made easier. Simply make it to where the higher your weapon skill is, the higher percentage chance you have of actually inflicting the poison. The higher the level of poison (greater, deadly, etc.), the harder it is to inflict.

Let's say I have 120 Fencing. Even at 120, I'd inflict deadly (or lethal) poison 3/5, or maybe even 2/5, attempts. Input a message like, "You fail to poison your target." Some players may even choose to use a weaker poison, simply because they would be able to inflict it more often.

Curing poison will be as difficult as it originally was, making the people who use poison happy. But, actually inflicting it is more difficult, making the victim happy.

Stratics Veteran

For poisoning with a blade, using the poisoning skill, it is easy to apply, but I also have to hit you. Defense chance comes into play for the difficulty of poisoning a person with a blade.

Now, most folks poisoning with a blade are going to be inflicting deadly or lethal. It's not worth it to poison the lesser levels really.

These poisons aren't as easily cured by the Mage Spell - Cure. Most mages will have to run away and cast Arch Cure. The same is also true of Cleanse by Fire. It will sometimes cure on the first cast, (karma dependent), but usually will take a couple times.

In my opinion, the real problem lies with Pot curing, as it is now. I have never failed to cure deadly with just one Greater Cure Pot. There should be a timer on it... say 5 seconds or so. This is enough time to make the poison useful for a tick, but also gives a chance for the person to cure the poison. Cure Pots should have a 3 second timer on them

Most folks run around with a couple ways of healing or have extra HP regen. They might have to disengage, for a couple seconds to concentrate on the poison but would be right back in it. The 5 second timer would be let you start an aid, and cure with a pot. If you got poisoned again (within 5 seconds) the aid would take care of it and you would have to drink a heal pot. This way it is more of an inconvenience, but most folks wouldn't have to change their template to deal with it.

On the opposite side of things, the mana cost for that infectious strike is 15. However, most blade poisoners will use only 10 or possibly 5 mana points for that special move, which is incredibly low. Even if I deal with the penalty of special moves within 3 seconds. - The first one is 5, the second one is 10. (or the first is 10 and the 2nd 20). I think the start value for mana on infectious strike should be raised to 20 possibly 25.

This easy solution, makes the person inflicted have to deal with it, perhaps even disengage from the battle for a couple seconds. The poisoner would see some benefit from his skill but would have to be more judicious with his mana so they couldn't be chained.

A couple things I haven't discussed....

One is Spirit Speak. It should remain the same. It heals through poison. However, if the continue to let lethal tick, they will get interrupted at some point and have to deal with it.

The other is shurikens. Hit chance of the shuriken is based off the ninja skill. Ninja's can't apply lethal poison, just deadly. They have no mana cost associated with throwing a shuriken. Personally, I consider this a bit of a free ride for Ninja's. One of 2 things need to happen here. They need to pay the same mana penalty as the folks using infectious strike or the level of poison they can inflict should be capped at greater poison. (Greater poison stands a fair chance of being cured by a just a Cure Pot.)

Just my opinions,
Q

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Very good- and very interesting suggestions. Whatever anyone pushes for, must remain in the "balanced" realm, which this does.

Stratics Veteran

Make curing poison as difficult as it originally was, then instead make it equally difficult to actually inflict the poison. I can inflict poison every single time I hit someone. This is where the problem lies, not in the curing.

Curing poison shouldn't have been made easier. Simply make it to where the higher your weapon skill is, the higher percentage chance you have of actually inflicting the poison. The higher the level of poison (greater, deadly, etc.), the harder it is to inflict.

Let's say I have 120 Fencing. Even at 120, I'd inflict deadly (or lethal) poison 3/5, or maybe even 2/5, attempts. Input a message like, "You fail to poison your target." Some players may even choose to use a weaker poison, simply because they would be able to inflict it more often.

Curing poison will be as difficult as it originally was, making the people who use poison happy. But, actually inflicting it is more difficult, making the victim happy.

Problem solved.

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I am not actuallu sure that they made posioning better, when they changed it. It also used to erode your weapon. Maybe a step backwards would be better than going forward.

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